Holliday enclosed several pages from an antique pressing iron price guide from 1999. Five years ago, the Shepard hand fluter we showed was worth $125-175, or $135-185 if it had a separate bed.

Another reader clarified that the entire fluter isn’t heated, just the insert.

* * *

The e-mail inbox contained lots of quick responses to Item No. 703.

It’s a livestock dehorner and, says Floyd Simpson of Belmont, Ohio, from the size of it, it may be for smaller animals like goats or young calves.

Simpson should know. For 37 years, he sold animal health products, including “hundreds” of Barnes Dehorners, he says. Most of the Barnes dehorners had wooden handles for this size, he adds. The company’s larger dehorner had metal tubes for handles.